Best and worst of each

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RWK

RWK

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Jun 3, 2007
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Ok, got a question for everybody.

Right now, the Big three wire services - 1800Flowers/Bloomnet, FTD, and Teleflora all have features, services, products, advantages and disadvantages.

I would like to have your opinions.....on what is the best and worst, the good and bad of the wire services.

So, Post your opinions........The bad and the good. Is it possible that the good could outweigh the bad? Could the bad be so horrible that no amount of good could get close to even?



 
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ok,

I'll bite...

we are currently TF, so i'll comment only on TF..

I hate TF.com, they are directly competing with us...

I LOVE the TF education center. I would go there even if I wasn't a TF member.

I am really sick of the constant changing of the arrangements all their "tfweb's"
Enough all ready!! There's lots of reason why I'm sick of the tfweb's, but I don't feel like typing.........
 
TF has become a pretty good source for florists' services and products.

You will read and hear a lot of nasty comments about the cookie cutter website templates that the WS's produce, but they are very professional looking, and easy for florists to have a web presence.

Websites take a lot of time to manage and keep fresh. If you have the luxury of time then fine, go develop your own or hire someone outside the WS world to manage it for you. Will the customer know the difference? I doubt it. The customer might know the difference if your flower shop is in a highly competitive local floral shop website environment. In other words, if four of your competitors are using FTD's template, you might be well served to differentiate somehow.

Also, TF conducts webinars that help teach florists about webdevelopment and marketing. Your participation doesn't require any additional fees. The last webinar was on SEO stuff.

CC processing can be cheaper through the Ws's (sometimes)

Education, TF is wonderful. FTD and 800?????

Products, FTD does offer some good values on vases and baskets, i.e. under a $1 or under $2 for decent sized containers.

The WS can and do offer products and services that appeal to customer and services that minimize the florists' time vs doing it themselves.

Nationwide advertising and marketing? Some would say this is a positive as it creates continuity for the flower buyer who needs to send flowers out of town.

Bad, the holiday containers don't sell (except Kincaid), the co-op advertising is hideously expensive.

Bad, the WS online OG presence.

Bad, the add on fees.

Bad, the expense.

In summary, the WS services allow "one-stop-shopping" for many products and services florists need and desire. For me, its a time management issue. I don't have the time to do everything, so farming out some services to TF is a big help.
 
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Without the wire services, our SCFA Convention would have lacked some very nice programs. TF (Sharon McGukin), FTD (Keith White), and Bloomnet (Jackie Lacey) provided designers for us who were outstanding with information, design quality, and personality. TF also provides designers for programs in our state throughout the year.
 
ok here goes, I am TF and Bloomnet..

TF good- Services offered are good for the florist who is a one man band, they have great coverage with some of the best florists in the country, they have some good specials in the clearance rack, they offer POS systems, WO are easily entered and sent, WI are easily pulled into system and printed, recipes are a guideline but you determine the value and can adjust according to TF rules, education programs.

bad-membership and fees are high, .com orders are always low priced, the amount of web orders that are created are way too much, the specials do not sell, the advertising does not work, people call daily to try and sell you on things that do not sell, calling to cancel ads or fix anything usually ends up being a 2 hour ordeal, flowers all hours is bad, bad, bad, Reciprocity is outrageos(not a flat fee but a percentage of your incoming)

800-flowers-good, membership is a sliding scale depending on how many orders you recieve, low sending is a flat fee, the arrangements sell great, the specials sell great, their projections are usually on the money, containers come in smaller packages(6 and 8) instead of 24, they have a huge amount of orders to send you if you play the game properly.

bad-shops are sometimes questionalble for sending, credits take forever and ever to get and straighten out, customer service sux, no flexibility on recipes(must be very careful to get flowers needed at rock bottom prices)they must have all components even if it means cutting into your profit, fees, fees and more fees, no education programs.


This was all I could think of for now...my assessment is that each of them has their benes and they work out pretty equal interms of sucking...without TF I would have no technology and would have been out of business very quickly, without the other I would not be able to pay either and would have not been able to grow...Once my system is paid for next year I will be in need of making a decision of getting rid of one or the other...not sure yet who it will be...I will imagine it will be 800 but one never knows...
 
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I view them all on a similar playing field. All with pros and cons but all of them at a cost to us in order to provide a service to our customers.
Only thing I have noticed over the years is that TF has a much better representation in the small communities. It is sometimes hard to get close to a delivery destination if your only access is FTD.
 
beewell said:
I view them all on a similar playing field. All with pros and cons but all of them at a cost to us in order to provide a service to our customers.
Only thing I have noticed over the years is that TF has a much better representation in the small communities. It is sometimes hard to get close to a delivery destination if your only access is FTD.
Click to expand...

problem with all of them is that their sign up reps have no design experience therefore they can not correctly state a shop has a quality assurance rating. Teleflora signs up everyone...plain and simple, every shop they can get. You can not send through a wire service anymore with any guarantee that a trained designer is employed there. It is a crap shoot no matter which you use.
 
The problem with every one of them is:

Their rules! Or I should say the only rule is, there are no rules!

Every one, has listing rules in place, that would in short order eliminate the order gatherers, however they choose to only enforce those rules they can that make them money...

Short answer: Wire Services are no longer in our best interest as florists, they have all become predatory canibals feeding on their young.
 
I agree that the reps do nothing to test the shops. Years ago when I enrolled for FTD and Teleflora, they did in shop inspections and I had to make 2 designs for each of them while they were in the shop.

Dropped Telefloral and later went back, no inspections or design test.

1800 did nothing, no inspection, no design test. Nothing. I think if they would go back to doing these things that it would improve the standards of shops.
 
FTD
Good: Brand recognition
Bad: Drop ship

TF
Good: Support of Education
Bad: Difficult to get someone on the phone, whether you're calling customer service or tech support. Once you do get someone on the phone they often can't help you and you have to wait for someone else to call you back ~ usually the next day.

FTD & TF Both
Unwillingness to weed out bad flower shops. We pay for quality assurance, but often take a risk and stumble into a "florist" who can't even copy a %($*%& photo!
 
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Dee Dee said:
b4 I even read further or think 4 one minute let me say this ONLY Tf doesn't drop ship.
Click to expand...
What, so that makes everything else all right? They have Vancouver Flowers...all be it renamed...perhaps the worst OG in the biz...
 
My personal opinion:

FTD....the worst....long ago used to be GREAT but since they changed to the grocery store look, involving heavily into the grocery store scene it has constantly went downhil...surprized they are even open and running. Really crappy old fashioned containers.

TF....in the earlier days, loved their containers, fresher look, but now they try to sell their containers in huge quantities and then push their web-designs (make a decision already). NOT happy to find out that they have those fake websites on FAF and we are still in the process of getting this fixed. Terrible customer service, no one ever calls you back. We are getting mostly orders for 25 dollars. Their education center is great! I think that is the one thing going for them.

800flowers.....personally, I really like this one the most. Mainly get orders for about 10 similar types of arrangements. Flowers are easy to obtain. Orders are easy to fill. The most technologically advanced of the big three. Would like to see them develop education and other services.

And by the way, when we joined 800, we had to send them photos of our shop, etc before we were included. This might have changed, though.
 
Rhonda at work said:
problem with all of them is that their sign up reps have no design experience therefore they can not correctly state a shop has a quality assurance rating. Teleflora signs up everyone...plain and simple, every shop they can get. You can not send through a wire service anymore with any guarantee that a trained designer is employed there. It is a crap shoot no matter which you use.
Click to expand...
I guess I am lucky that in most cases where the need for a small town to service a customer is generally within 2 or so hours of our shop. I spend alot of time making sure when I can that I have acutally been in and seen the work of the shops that are filling the orders. I know this certainly does not apply to areas more far reaching, but I think as florists we owe it to our customers to actually know the work of the shops we are sending to whenever we can.
 
Remember, This is a comparison of good AND bad.
Those replies that have given some purely negative response......let's hear something good as well.
 
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